Sunday, October 7, 2012

Sabbatical Dreams

As pre-writing for a sabbatical proposal, I took out a piece of paper and wrote down the question, "What do I want to do on sabbatical?"

Since I've been thinking for a long time about the project I would work on in the event of a sabbatical, my answers surprised me:

Get better at teaching languages. Read lots of Hebrew and extra-biblical Greek.

Go to [insert developing world country], and teach there.

Read primary sources and classic secondary sources for the sheer joy of learning.

This feels like rest, a real sabbatical, a break from the academic "publish and perish" rat race and the pressure of teaching seven classes a year, a chance to rediscover why I entered this vocation in the first place. I also expect it would do more to help my teaching than the major writing project I actually proposed.

Along the same lines, this description sounds very attractive:

"I have come a long way from where I was at the start of my sabbatical. The one activity I chose specifically to take me away from my work has become a central part of my work and of my life. As a professor, I am required to make reasoned and thoughtful professional plans, but going where my heart (rather than my head) led me has yielded unexpected, rejuvenating, and inspiring rewards." - Dominick Scudera

(I should note that the fact that I submitted a sabbatical proposal is no guarantee that I will be awarded one. But I can keep dreaming.)

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About Me

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.
- Robert Frost, "Two Tramps in Mud Time"